Effectiveness of huge farm allocations doubted

Maqsood Maniyar | NT

Bengaluru / Bagalkote: Some farmers have reacted counter-intuitively to t he huge budgetary allocations for the agriculture sector arguing that they didn’t need to gather more loans.

They reasoned that a reduction in fertilizer prices and Minimum Support Price (MSP) for their produce would serve them better. Economists on the other hand said that loans, even interest free ones, would benefit only wealthy farmers, rather than the small scale, marginalised farmers.

They were referring to Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai allocating Rs 25,000 crore in loans for farmers and raising the upper limit for interest free loans from Rs 3 lakh to Rs5 lakh, Rs 10,000 direct cash transfer to accounts of Kisan Credit Card holders, apart from a slew of other initiatives meant to help the agriculture sector. Kalmesh Sanganannavar, who owns 20 acres of land near Shirol village of Mudhol district in Bagalkote district, said that he had been saddled with loans upwards of Rs 50 lakh and more loans would not help him.

“Compared to last year, the rate of fertilizers has gone up 40 to 45 percent,” he said. “It won’t work out. This is why people avoid agriculture. People with money from elsewhere can persist in this profession. Otherwise, you just get saddled with debt,” he added. “Your current proposal is to increase the loan burden on us. When will our debt burden be eased? We are educating our children so that they move away from farming,”Kalmesh said.

“They take your land on security to release the loan. What good will Rs 10,000 do when fertiliser prices are so high?” he asked. Economists maintained that farmers had been turned into a vote bank and that it was a case of giving loans to people who may vote for the ruling parties when they make such a move.

“Since 1979, the farmer has become a coin in political games. Every party plays the coin and tries to make the best out of the vote back called farmers. Actual farmers are not touched. It ’s only the have among the farmers that have not stayed where they are,” Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC) economic professor RS Deshpande said, adding that the farmer-centric Budget was expected since it was a poll year.